176 ANDREWS. 



obvious creature, or that they are wholly dependent on it for 

 continued existence, — but it discovers to us that this is but a 

 small part of all, that the true organism is the invisible vesic- 

 ular substance whose mass limits coincide of necessity with 

 those of the living being; that all of the multiple parts and 

 powers, functions and organs, of living units are, and primarily 

 were, of and for the substance as such, and only partially and 

 incidentally for the animal or plant : — in short that the zoolog- 

 ical or botanical unit is in part a psychological formulation of 

 mass separateness, while actually a vesicular accident or func- 

 tional incident of the substance organism's protoplastic life. 



The fruit of these researches, then, is discovery of a new 

 biological standpoint with its terms. Though bringing no 

 explanation of vital phenomena, they may, none the less, prove 

 helpful, — after the manner of a perpetuation area, — by freeing 

 the substance of our thought from trammels of that secondary, 

 incidental, structure its very self-expression has wrought about 

 it ; and by re-embodying it in a younger and more plastic phase 

 which, though it must bear out the race-history, may better 

 meet our opportunities, and is less encumbered by excretions, 

 and inorganic, inelastic, deposits of centuries of function. 



Our old standpoint will not, and should not, be abandoned 

 for the new — but this, once perceived, can never be forgotten 

 or discarded. Research cannot spring wholly from one or 

 from the other, but the interest of active workers will surge 

 into the new or back to old paths as natural limitations of 

 power and focussed effort block man's progress here or there. 

 Flux and intermission and recurrence — these things pertain 

 to all substance function from the lowest protoplastic to the 

 highest perceptive — marking the very throb and pulse of 

 livingness. 



The mystery of life remains, — but at least it has had no 

 light answer framed to meet it. " That which is is far off and 

 exceeding deep ; who can find it out ,-* " 



August, 1896, 



